the musings of a cynical optimist

Archive for May, 2011

I didn’t start off the day thinking I’d tell off the bus driver. I swear. Quite the opposite in fact. I’ve been working hard to be a really good, happy person.

I do yoga. I sing. I, of all people, now have a fucking ‘success journal’. I treat others with compassion and understanding and I come from a place of love.

None of this comes natural to me so this is kind of a big deal.

My friends and I have had some shitty jobs, fast food chains, amusement parks, call centres, you name it. So I’m extra kind to those in the service industry. I ask my barista how she’s doing. I ask the bank teller if he’s having a good day. You get the idea.

I finish my restorative yoga class which is a lot like play school but better. I stretch, I relax so much i fall asleep. I leave there happy as a clam.

As a side note, I’m also 5’3 and was wearing a puffy pink winter vest which makes me look like an adorable fashion victim.

At the bus stop, the bus pulls up and the six people in front of me plow on to a very full bus. There is only me and one other person waiting to get on still. The door is open and I can tell this driver is not a happy camper. She is scowling as she yells, “Everyone behind the white line. This bus isn’t going anywhere until everyone is BEHIND THE LINE.”

I assumed she was trying to make room for me and the other woman to jump on. Why? Well, That’s what usually happens. The door was still open. She hadn’t told us she couldn’t. So i tentatively put a foot on the bus and this driver screamed at me .

“No, I SAID NO. There are too many people on here as it is. Do i look like I have room for you?”

And I said, “Okay, but you don’t have to be mean about it, YOU BITCH.”

In the perfect world, if i was a perfect person coming from aforementioned ‘place of love’, I would have said something nice and caring like, “I hope your day gets better.”. I would have realized her rant had nothing to do with me and more to do with her job stress, her family, her relationship and I would have let it just roll off my shoulder.

But this is the problem, me and people like me face… when you try to be that blissful and loving all the time, sometimes you end up denying the authentic you. You internalize your anger. You smile and say something loving when you are seething inside. I do this a lot. I do it so much I have mad shoulder tension and bite marks on the side of my tongue, from literally biting my tongue!

And from the global perspective, it is not always good to let shit like this go.

I don’t want to validate her bad behaviour by doing nothing. It creates a vicious cycle of people being pricks and not being called out on it. It makes nice people who just happen to get in the way have to deal with this by either meditating on it to release the negative vibes to the universe fairies or by not letting go and chewing their tongues off.

Yelling at someone for no good reason is aggressive and abusive behaviour. And it’s very unpredictable. I don’t let my family and friends talk to me like that, so why should I let a total stranger?

So really, I swore at the bus driver for the greater good of mankind. Everyone wins. I feel great for finally speaking my mind, and now that bitch knows she was being a bitch.

I have this theory. We all have a finite amount of heart beats. And once they are used up, we die. And there is nothing we can do to alter this fate. The same goes with crapping yourself.

You see, I’m 30 now and it seems i have a counter-clockwise biological clock. When I was 10, I wanted twins or triples. And now I want nothing. Technically I want a cross breed of my and my partner’s DNA combined with kittens – but more on that later.

I’ve been trying to pin down the exact reason why I have no interest in children. I’m too selfish and immature, my body will fall apart, my hormones will be crazier than they were during my teen years, my partner won’t want to fuck me anymore, kids are expensive and kinda parasitic yada yada. But I’m starting to believe the answer is simpler than that.

It’s really about poop.

Most women shit themselves during labor. No big deal. It’s very normal and natural – though to be honest, I don’t remember seeing that part of the video in junior high sex ed.

But I used up my ‘crap-myself’ turn in Mexico 2002. In one of the best summers of my life, I spent 2 months in Guadalajara. I also went to Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta. The details are hazy. I’d had a number of digestive issues on my trip related to an intolerance for spice and being a vegetarian suddenly eating street meat. This problem was compounded by grave amounts of rum. Soo, mexican food combined with rum bum and viola. I shit my pants. It wasn’t my proudest moment. It’s been my secret shame (though still not as embarrassing as dating a guy addicted to war craft).

Luckily, I was close to home. I changed my clothes, cleaned up a little, and went back out to party. I’ve never been one to let a little fecal matter stand in the way of a good time…

But there you have it. And not only did that moment completely redefine who I am as a person, it also used up a pooping pants chance. And only time will tell if and when I’ll get another.